List, Jason is right, there are different schools of thought. In the school of thought regarding candidates, I fall into "A". If I am attending an endorsing convention, the candidates should be arriving for the purpose of being endorsed. Otherwise, stay home. If candidates just want to consider the endorsement, its telling me that they have not reached a clear conclusion. Thereby, don't waste my time if you are not ready to go all the way. We will go forth with a convention when the candidates who have (when given a deadline) are absolutely sure they plan to abide by the endorsement. If abiding by the endorsement is of no consideration, then the candidate has just graciously spared me a Saturday in their presence, and everybody is happy. On a similar note, if a candidate that I plan to support does not plan to abide by the endorsement, as a delegate, I would feel obligated to abstain from that vote. That way those candidates and delegates who are committed to abiding could recieve a fair and untainted vote. I feel that would only be fair. And then resume voting for the other races. I have stated where I stand politically on previous posts. If the party chooses to endorse a candidate I personally do not believe upholds my personal values, I will not vote for them, in the primary or otherwise. I do the same on the convention floor as I do in the voting booth. Vote my conscience. Here's to honest discussion. Either you have a convention "TO ENDORSE" a candidate or you don't. There really is no gray area. IMHO, Rybak's delegates could not have been committed to endorsing, otherwise they would not have followed his commands and left, especially when there were other races still to be considered and candidates to be endorsed. Their behavior proved disrepectful to the other candidates, to the remaining delegates, and to the individuals who put in their time mounting the entire convention. Try as they might, there is really nothing that can be said to convince me otherwise. I am guessing that when this whole thing about endorsing began, there were no multiple choice answers. That is one of the problems with the DFL now. There needs to be a firm stance taken, and then for the DFL Party to get a backbone and stand by the decision. And, I could be wrong, but my guess is also that if there were no support and money attached to these endorsements, not that many candidates would bother seeking them. Perhaps that is what needs to be reformed. Make candidates raise their own money, and set limits on how much they can spend on it. Let candidates really WORK for the people's votes instead of relying on party loyalties, etc. Instead of endorsing candidates at all, we could spend the money on hosting multiple single issue forums where the candidates could devote ample time to the discussion of those issues, instead of multiple forums filled with multiple issues which are then reduced to repetitive sound-bites. That to me, would be a much better service to our fellow constituents, which would result in much better political decisions overall. Pamela Taylor (10th Ward and out of posts for today)
Jason C Stone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: The discussion about the endorsement process is a good one, but it would be better if it started with an understanding that DFL'ers put different weight on the question of 'will you abide by the DFL endorsement?'. DFL Delegates reach one of three conclusions: A) it is of utmost importance B) it is a consideration C) it is not even a consideration. Not acknowledging the different schools of thought is not conducive to honest discussion. If someone desires to change how the DFL party as a whole deals with the question, start a campaign to change DFL process. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
